How do you write numbers one and seven?

[Alex & Rachel 78]

I started writing my 7s this way in high school after growing terrified that an examiner would confuse my 1s with my 7s and mark answers to questions as wrong. It just makes things a little clearer for everyone!

I still occasionally slip up with the formatting of dates (DD-MM-YY vs MM-DD-YY) but spelling hasn't been much of a problem...so far.

[Cacerez 19]

I write one l, just a single line, and seven 7, no line through it!

I also don't cross my Z's. I interchange 2 and the two that curls like a pretzel...any other way to describe that???

I learned to slash the 7, the Z and the 0 from my COBOL programming years using coding sheets

When I was in high school calculus, I tried to slash my 0s, then started getting points taken off. I asked the teacher about it and she explained to me that a slashed 0 actually is nil, or non-existent, which is mathematics is different from zero, so I went back to just plain 0.

[lucyrich 20]

When I (native speaker of American English) took Spanish lessons, I remember the teacher saying you must to "fly the flag" on a 1. It needs that extra line on the top, that makes it look like a 7 to us gringos. And we had to learn to put the line through our 7s.

Another cultural difference is how you count on your fingers. There are at least three styles. I was taught that 1 is the index finger, 2 is like the victory sign, three has the little finger and thumb down with the three middle digits up, four has all the fingers up, and five obviously has the fingers and thumb up. But some cultures start counting with the thumb first, and other cultures start counting with the little finger first.

Our daughter is being brought up bilingual. When I count to her in English, I start with my index finger. When I count to her in Spanish, I start with my thumb.

[rocks 494]

I write one l, just a single line, and seven 7, no line through it!

I also don't cross my Z's. I interchange 2 and the two that curls like a pretzel...any other way to describe that???

I learned to slash the 7, the Z and the 0 from my COBOL programming years using coding sheets

haha COBOL! i do the same thing too, i thought i was the only person who did a 0 with a line through! nice to know i'm not crazy afterall.

[Mrs.J06 4]

When I (native speaker of American English) took Spanish lessons, I remember the teacher saying you must to "fly the flag" on a 1. It needs that extra line on the top, that makes it look like a 7 to us gringos. And we had to learn to put the line through our 7s.

Another cultural difference is how you count on your fingers. There are at least three styles. I was taught that 1 is the index finger, 2 is like the victory sign, three has the little finger and thumb down with the three middle digits up, four has all the fingers up, and five obviously has the fingers and thumb up. But some cultures start counting with the thumb first, and other cultures start counting with the little finger first.

Our daughter is being brought up bilingual. When I count to her in English, I start with my index finger. When I count to her in Spanish, I start with my thumb.

Isn't that funny? I start counting with my thumb, my husband with the little finger.

After a lot of discussions and fights with my colleague in accounting I have now given in to write the 7 and 1 like the "proper" Americans do! Everytime I'm in Germany I get ####### for it, though... can't win

[mkg265 2]

I haven't encountered written number problems yet but there are phrases and the way I say which makes people ask me a couple of times. Let me ask you guys how you say things

Egg-- If I have to spell it out to someone, I would say it as -- E Double G. My husband has been trying to tell me not to use Double just say E G G

209-- I sometimes say it as --TWO NOT NINE. Again my husband has been teaching me to say it as - TWO ZERO NINE

There are many small things like these where I have to make adjust, from spellings -- from colour to color . To how one pronounce alphabets -- say Z I would pronounce it as -- ZED but out here it's ZEE

Ok I'm a native english speaker with two double letters in my last name and I've always said double r and double t. The only people who have trouble with it are the call centers in India.

[LA80 3]

When I (native speaker of American English) took Spanish lessons, I remember the teacher saying you must to "fly the flag" on a 1. It needs that extra line on the top, that makes it look like a 7 to us gringos. And we had to learn to put the line through our 7s.

Another cultural difference is how you count on your fingers. There are at least three styles. I was taught that 1 is the index finger, 2 is like the victory sign, three has the little finger and thumb down with the three middle digits up, four has all the fingers up, and five obviously has the fingers and thumb up. But some cultures start counting with the thumb first, and other cultures start counting with the little finger first.

Our daughter is being brought up bilingual. When I count to her in English, I start with my index finger. When I count to her in Spanish, I start with my thumb.

That is interesting.

I think I start with my thumb when counting as well.

[sj5 4]

When I write "I" they think its 2.

Edited March 5, 2009 by VJ's Opportunist

[LA80 3]

There is another thing I remembered and it kinda has to do with 1. In schools, we do not have letters as grades, but we have numbers from 1 to 5. 5 is the best, and 1 is an F. Now...There is no teacher who will write 1 as "l"...it has to be written in red and it has to have the specific spike so that it pokes you in the eye when you see it.

[britbird 4]

I'm a brit...well, I'm a US citizen now...oh theconfusion.

Anyway, I do the 7 with a slash through it (got to be a habit in junior school - one of the teachers did it and i thought it looked cool). The zero with a slash I do more now i'm in the US...depends.

But what I still have trouble with is the date format...urgh. For some reason it continues to throw me and I have no idea why.

[mkg265 2]

That's another difference. Grading. I had the good old-fashioned A-F and sometimes the 100-60 too.

My husband's were 10-1. He said that 6 and 7 were good scores and no one ever got an 9 or 10.

I loved grade inflation in high school. I had a 4.0!!

[trinket 30]

I haven't encountered written number problems yet but there are phrases and the way I say which makes people ask me a couple of times. Let me ask you guys how you say things

Egg-- If I have to spell it out to someone, I would say it as -- E Double G. My husband has been trying to tell me not to use Double just say E G G

209-- I sometimes say it as --TWO NOT NINE. Again my husband has been teaching me to say it as - TWO ZERO NINE

There are many small things like these where I have to make adjust, from spellings -- from colour to color . To how one pronounce alphabets -- say Z I would pronounce it as -- ZED but out here it's ZEE

Ok I'm a native english speaker with two double letters in my last name and I've always said double r and double t. The only people who have trouble with it are the call centers in India.

Never worked in a call center, don't even know the whole work culture there, so I am not sure about the whole thing. But I have had problem in US when I use "double".

[caybee 21]

I write 1 as a single line. I usually slash my 7. I don't slash my Z. I loop the lower left corner of my 2. My capital I usually has a top and bottom stroke these days.

When I was a teenager, I learned Morse code to get a ham license, and they taught me to write letters quickly without lifting the pencil and using as few strokes as possible. I can still do that if I'm in a hurry, but I have to get in the zone. I write so few things by hand anymore that my handwriting has become pretty awful, not to mention painful. That was more than you asked.

My husband's 1 looks like a 7 to a lot of people. He slashes his 7. His capital I is one stroke, and I'm pretty sure he slashes his Z. My guess is he does everything the French way.

[Jenn! 918]

Took me a while to get used to the 1 vs. 7 thing when living in Italy. I was a math teacher to Italian students!

But actually, they had both Italian math class and "regular" math class. And they were supposed to use the conventions from each country when in class. So that went for the 1 vs. 7, as well as the comma vs. decimal point.

[Jasman0717 9]

I started writing my 7s this way in high school after growing terrified that an examiner would confuse my 1s with my 7s and mark answers to questions as wrong. It just makes things a little clearer for everyone!

I still occasionally slip up with the formatting of dates (DD-MM-YY vs MM-DD-YY) but spelling hasn't been much of a problem...so far.

It was out of necessity for us. We had data entry people that would punch our our cards from our coding sheets and if you didn't slash the 7s or zeros you would be doing updated punch cards